Post on 16-May-2015
description
Digital Storytellingin second language learning and teaching
Kirsty McGeoch
University of Sydney, AustraliaPresentation at AFMLTA, Sydney, July 12, 2009.
Juergen‟s
Digital Storyjuergen_videostory.wmv
** All images and music are either copyright-free or permission has been obtained.
Juergen‟s digital story
Personally meaningful
Written by him
Narrated by him
Images and music chosen by him
2:45
Background
10 steps
Findings
Background
The Center for Digital Storytelling
www.storycenter.org
7 elements of digital storytelling(Center for Digital Storytelling)
1. Point of the story
2. Dramatic question
3. Emotional content
4. Gift of your voice
5. Power of soundtrack
6. Economy
7. Pacing
Uses in
Education
Multiliteracies and content in K-12.
(Banaszewski, 2002, 2005; Ohler, 2005)
Agency and self-
esteem in youth.
(Hlubinka, 2003; Hull & Katz, 2006)
Reflective practice among
school students and in
teacher professional
development. (Barrett, 2006).
Intercultural Education
training of pre-service
teachers.
(Carroll & Carney, 2005).
Multimodal expression
with second language
writers.
(Nelson, 2006)
What about using it in ELICOS settings?
(ELICOS = English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students).
•Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education –
University of Queensland
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Mexico,
Austria, Holland, Uruguay & Saudi Arabia
25 English language learners (pre-advanced to advanced)aged 18 – 50 over 2 action research cycles
My timeframeFirst time around…..
20 hours (4 hours a week for 5 weeks).
… very rushed indeed
Subsequently……
27.5 hours (5.5 hours a week for 5 weeks)
10 steps
1. Preparing
myself
Making my
own digital
stories.
2. Building
the group
Hello, my
name is
Kirsty.
What are you really
good at?
Based on a poem by George
Ella Lyon, 1999
“After doing the activities
/games in the first lecture all
of us were able to get rid of
most of our shyness and a
nice climate to work was
found.”Juergen, Austria
3. Orientation
towards the
project
Showing my
digital story
“It gave
guidelines…………”
Cecilia, Hong Kong
“ And when we see someone trying to introduce themselves. We feel relaxed and we can open our minds to them. So I think it made me feel closer to you.”
Hana, Korea
“Because you told
your story first, so
you are one of us.”
Robin, China
“…the most important
fact for the motivation
was your video story –
I just wanted to have
one of my own.” Juergen, Austria
highlighted the elements of the genre
watched digital stories and
4. First drafts
talk &
free writing
The date of a major achievement, the time
there was a particularly bad setback,
meeting a special person, the birth of a
child, the end of a relationship, the death
of a loved one are all examples of these
fork-in-the-road experiences. Right now, at
this second, write about a decisive
moment in your life. You have 10 minutes.
(Digital Storytelling Cookbook, Feb 2007, p. 21).
Look at past
scripts
The story circle
“I just need one good idea….”
What‟s the
focusof my story?
“ In my situation I didn't have a real life
changing event so I summarized my life
and tried to focus on my life as a student…
But with the lack of a real interesting focus
I think I'm going to rewrite my story and tell
more about my choice to study Law and
how I first thought to study science in
contrairy to all the people in my family who
have been studying Law.” Michael
(Holland).
trust
Because we share our
stories so we know each
other so we don’t need to
shame [sic] or shy.Chan (Korea)
A
chance
to
open
up
“At first, we need to talk about our
story, we sit around each other, it was
really nervous actually and I thought
“could I talk this story like this – it is
kind of my secret story, but once I did,
it feels like much better because I talk
something I hid it before.”
Chan, Korea
I don’t know. It’s like go to
therapy – but cheaper. Really,
I never talk about this with
anyone. I don’t like to talk
about this. This time, I tried to
tell – not all – but a little bit. I
feel better with that. Ana, Mexico
Any resistance?
5. Further
development
of scripts
300
words
x 6(or more)
peer review
“…..generally when I stay in the
classroom, even though I don’t
have a good understanding I
usually don’t ask them, but in the
group discussion everyone asked
some points they don’t know
about that….. Because it is
about their life.” Jina, Korea
“At that time I had
enough time to rewrite
again. That gave me
confidence.”Betty, Korea.
“I wrote my fingers to the bone.”Yoon, Korea
“I spent normally more than 4 hours on every Wednesday and Sunday before your class for editing my script. In addition, while I was doing it, I often met Jaslene through MSN messenger doing same task until quite late.”
Yoon, Korea
“I didn’t care… (about writing in the past) I found that so boring –I don’t like it, I’m not going to use it, I just want to talk. With this, I realised that it is very important. Sometimes I need to communicate with people and I have to do that in writing.”
Clara, Mexico
“I have to go to the library,
borrow a book to check the
tense. I never , never, never
do that until this time because
was worried about that so it
was really good for my
English”.Clara, Mexico
…….the class blog
“Because I read the
stories of the others and
I found that my story is
not good enough and I
changed.” Max, Hong Kong.
I went to the library to check the culture connection. I like it – it is a place to share our stuff. Another reason I want to read them, I know that at the end of the course we will see our movies and I want – I’m afraid there are some words or sentence I don’t understand, so I want to read them first. Because – if you don’t understand particular words, I could get the wrong feeling about the movie. I want to know their story fist then watching it.Nicole, China
yoona said... I absolutely can understand your feeling because I did that same as you and still often. May be through your digital story, I belive I might know how you could change it. I looking forward to yours!August 8, 2008 10:56 PM – From our class blog.
6 Storyboards
and images
Reading
images
While I concur with Kress (2003) that "the
world told is a different world to the world
shown," (p. 1) I would point out ... that the
possibility exists for the "world told" to
be told in a way that is substantially more
powerful and authentic, from the
perspective of the author, when it is also
shown.
(Nelson, 2006, p. 67)
Chan‟s
digital storyA SIGNIFICANT PERSON - by Chan.wmv
7 Voiceovers
Audacityhttp://audacity.sourceforge.net/
audio
“I haven’t heard my voice
before in English….., so for me
it was very useful because I
could listen to my mistakes. I
know that I have mistakes but I
didn’t listen to them before.”
Dany, Mexico
“It was very helpful for
intornation and it is still very
helpful not to forget the
intornation or accent while I
stay at home.”
Jina, Korea
8. Choose your
soundtrack
9. Putting it all
together
Windows
Movie Maker
Rough cut viewing
10 Final screening
“Nice, funny, time-intensive, worthy!interesting, patient, suffering, hard, bright, happy, delighted, stressful, original, meaningful, tiring, exciting, unforgettable, challenging, heart-warming, thoughtful, hardworking, creative, useful, enjoyable, fantastic, tough but very interesting, curious, adventurous, awesome, fabulous, great, emotional, motivated, different, wonderful.”
“I did it”Robin, China
What were
those 10
steps again??
1. Prepare myself
2. Build and bond the group
3. Orient the group by viewing digital stories
4. First drafts & story circle
5. Script development
6. Storyboards and images
7. Pronunciation practice and voiceovers
8. Choosing a soundtrack
9. Compiling the movie
10. Screening
Emerging
findings
Improved
language
skills?
After participating in this project I think I
have improved my English:
agree strongly
agree
Total out of
18
respondents
in general 16 1 17
reading 4 - 4
listening 10 3 13
writing 12 4 16
grammar 9 3 12
vocabulary 11 2 13
speaking 10 7 17
pronunciation 5 13 18
Beyond
„language
goals‟ to „life
goals‟?(Stevick (1998) p. 166 cited in Arnold (1999) p. 3)
Understanding
the self and
other…..
“Before starting, I
thought a lot to seek
something that I want
to share. The more I
did, the clearer I saw
myself. I realized
what is important to
me and what I
treasure most, as
well as what should I
do in the following
few years.” Nicole, China
“It’s a kind of knowing more about myself.”
Betty, Korea.
“I love myself while making this story.”
(Jamie, Korea)
“To listen to others stories can learn different the way of thinking.”
Lin, China
I think participating in this digital
storytelling exchange helped me to….
…..Improve my English,
empathy with classmate’s
feeling, understanding other
cultures… Betty, Korea
At the first time I thought Hiro disliked
me, but it's from his unique personality.
He had his special world in his mind. In
the class we had to talk and share
ideas. That helped understand his own
thinking. As so far, we absolutely
improved our relationship. At the last
day, I took the photo with him. I'd never
imagened at the first day of our class.
Sense of community
“ I really feel like we are a
family, to do the whole thing
and show each other our own
story – it make each other feel
warm. I really think we have
been close friends. So that‟s
why I loved these classes.”Nicole,China
“ Some people revealed some
private things and after
discussing our topic we can
have a more deep
conversation with each other
during the breaking time.”Jina, Korea
The self and L2
investment
“ It was good for motivate
actually for purpose of learning
english. It's about life, and
once we start to talk about life,
english plays in a big role to go
ahead in the future.”
Jina, Korea
“Actually, my parents in Korea don‟t know exactly what I am doing down here. They always suspicious about my behaviour. ….After showing this (digital story) they are more reassured, relieved.”
Jina, Korea
“you will remember it if you see
it in two year, I will remember
every single person and funny
moments – I think that was the
motivation for everyone to
work that hard.”Juergen, Austria
“Even until now during
studying, whenever I had
got tired and stressed, I
often saw my digital story
encouraged me to keep
studying.” Yoon, Korea
“It was really quite good
because we were really
self-motivated. All we
really want to do, we did
it hard.” Chan, Korea
“I do not consider it just
a project, as a course to
gain some marks. I want
to do it from the bottom
of my heart.”
Nicole, China.
“So when I showed the digital story I was very proud of me. Also I thought I got the best present from AU.”
Betty, Korea
Identity texts
Cummins, 2006;
Norton, (in press)
“Teaching and learning which goes
beyond transmitting knowledge into the
realms of creative experiences, and which
mobilises deeply-felt shifts in
consciousness, can transform our
understanding of self, of others and the
complexities of the life of the mind.”
Empathic Intelligence. Roslyn Arnold
(2005), p. 12.
Digital StorytellingFor links to digital storytelling resources go to my blog and
website:
L2digitalstorytelling.blogspot.com
kirsty.mcgeoch@gmail.com
The University of Sydney, Australia
Credits: istockphoto, www.sxc.hu/, www.flickr.com/ Kevinzim